[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 54 (Thursday, March 23, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H3723-H3727]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           CAUSES OF POVERTY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 4, 1995, the gentleman from Vermont [Mr. Sanders] is recognized 
for 35 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be joined tonight by 
several other Members who will be speaking in a moment.
  Mr. Speaker, most of the discussion today dealt with the need for 
welfare reform, of which there is not a whole lot of disagreement, but 
I was rather shocked at how superficial in many ways the discussion 
about welfare reform today has been.
  Illegitimate children and the problem of drug addiction and the very 
serious crime problem that we face as a Nation are not the causes of 
poverty and are not the causes of the need for welfare. Rather, to a 
large degree, it is the reverse, the opposite that is true.
  In many respects, our country is becoming a poorer and poorer Nation. 
And not to talk about the causes of poverty, the loss of millions of 
good-paying manufacturing jobs, the decline in the wages that our 
working people are receiving, the growth of low-wage jobs, not to talk 
about that reality when we talk about welfare is absolutely absurd.
  Mr. Speaker, between 1979 and 1992, the number of full-time workers 
earning wages under the poverty line increased from 12 to 18 percent. 
Eighteen percent of our workers now are earning poverty wages. Between 
1990 and 1992, half of the women in the United States who found full-
time jobs were earning the poverty wage.
  Mr. HOKE. Mr. Sanders, would you be willing to engage in a debate on 
precisely this point?
  Mr. SANDERS. I will tell you what. We have only 35 minutes, and we 
have got four of us here. I would really love to do that. And if we do 
agree to do it sometime later this week or next week, I really would 
love to do that.
  But we have got four people. We do not have Rush Limbaugh and G. 
Gordon Liddy.
  Mr. HOKE. You have got the Washington Post.
  Mr. SANDERS. I think not. I think not. But I thank you. I would love 
to do it. I really would.
  Mr. HOKE. Thank you.
  Mr. SANDERS. In terms of welfare, not to
   understand that the $4.25 minimum wage today is virtually a 
starvation wage which forces people into welfare is not to understand 
the reality of what is going on in America today. The minimum wage 
today is 20 percent lower in purchasing power than it was in 1970.

  If we are serious, it seems to me, about welfare reform, then we must 
begin to talk about a real jobs program which rebuilds America. There 
is an enormous amount of work that could be done. We could take people 
off of welfare and put them to work rebuilding America, but we are not 
hearing that discussion from our Republican friends.
  If we are serious about welfare reform, we must talk about raising 
the minimum wage to a living wage so people can escape from poverty and 
earn enough money to take care of their children.
  If we are serious about welfare reform, we must improve our child 
care capabilities. What mother, what father can go out to work and 
leave his or her children abandoned in a house or an inadequate child 
care capabilities? That would be wrong.
  If we are serious about welfare reform, we must educate our people 
and provide job training so they can, in fact, go out and earn the 
wages that they need and the dignity that they want.
  The last point I want to make before I give the floor over to my good 
friend from Ohio [Ms. Kaptur] is to say that when we talk about welfare 
reform, which is a very important subject, we should also understand 
that welfare reform for the poor is only one part of the issue. We 
should also be talking about welfare reform for the rich and welfare 
reform for the large multinational corporations.
  Studies done by conservative groups such as the CATO Institute, 
liberal groups like Ralph Nader's Public Citizen, moderate groups like 
the Democratic Leadership Council's Progressive Policy Institute have 
demonstrated that there are tens and tens and tens of billions of 
dollars in welfare that go to the rich and go to the big corporations. 
So if we are serious about welfare reform, I think it is appropriate we 
begin that debate as well.
  I am now happy to introduce my good friend from Ohio, Marcy Kaptur.
  Ms. KAPTUR. I want to thank Congressman Sanders for your refreshing 
point of view and as the only independent Member of the House of 
Representatives for
 the extra effort that you put into trying to look behind the curtain 
and see what is really going on in important programs like the welfare 
program which is so much in need of reform.
  [[Page H3724]] What I liked about the Deal bill that was before us 
today was it absolutely linked work with welfare reform, and it 
provided mechanisms to move people into at least reading the want ads, 
having job conferences, trying to get the skills right away, the minute 
that the bill went into effect under the Republican version that I 
guess we will vote on on Friday. You don't even have to read the want 
ads for two years.
  So I like the tight linkage in the measure that we considered earlier 
today.
  But you mentioned women in the work force. And, of course, there are 
a lot of women and children on welfare in our country today.
  And there was a new Brookings Institution study of women who were in 
their 20's who had received welfare at some point during the late 
1970's and 1980's, and what was very interesting about that study was 
that it showed they did leave welfare. Two-thirds of the people do. But 
the women earned a median wage of about $5.20 an hour. That is too 
little to pull a family of three above the poverty line even with full-
time work.
  And low wages are the reason that two-thirds of those who leave 
welfare return within 3 years for some period of time, usually to get 
their footing again, and then they go back out there. I meet these 
women in my own district, working in bakeries, working in laundromats, 
working in restaurants.
  By the way, nonunion restaurants, where they are not guaranteed of 
health benefits. But a lot of them fall back on to welfare. They don't 
want to be there.
  I am sure there are loafers on every program, and we have problems 
with family structure in this country, but let us recognize that for 
many people and half of the people in my district on welfare work.
  What a terrible, terrible indictment of this society that people who 
go out there, 40, 50, 60 hours a week, are on welfare. The system isn't 
working for them. In fact, the numbers show that a person who works 40 
hours a week, 50 weeks per year at the current $4.25 minimum earns only 
$8,500 a year, not really enough to support a family.
  If the gentleman would just indulge me one extra
   minute here.

  I was thinking as I was driving through my city the other day about 
my mother's life. And she doesn't get C-SPAN. She doesn't get cable. So 
she can't hear me tonight. But how her life really differed from those 
of the women who are growing up in the neighborhoods that she lived in 
that she grew up as a child.
  And the big difference is that the jobs that were there that she 
could walk to, because no family was more poor than my mother's family 
poor, Champion Sparkplug is no longer in Toledo. Chase Bank, that was 
right up the street where my aunt worked, closed its door, moved 
offshore. The glove factory that my cousin worked at isn't there 
anymore. Dana Corporation moved 3,500 jobs to Mexico and out of our 
city. Bostwick Brown. Durwick Corporation. Swift and Armour. All the 
bicycle manufacturing capacity of the country was moved to Taiwan. When 
you think about what has happened to people, it isn't easy for them to 
find good-paying jobs.
  Mr. SANDERS. If I could just jump in and say not to understand that 
reality and when we discuss welfare reform is totally absurd.
  If I might, we have been joined by the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. 
Fields]. An interesting night because we have somebody from the 
Midwest, somebody from the south, Mr. Becerra is from California, and I 
am from Vermont, so I think it should be a good discussion.

                              {time}  2300

  Mr. Fields, would you like to join us.
  Mr. FIELDS of Louisiana. I thank the gentleman from Vermont for 
yielding. I just wanted to echo some of the sentiments of my colleagues 
about the need to create jobs and the need to improve the minimum wage. 
We have people wake up every morning, as each of you know, and they go 
to work everyday, and at the end of the day they are still poor. It is 
not because they are lazy, but simply because we need to raise the 
minimum wage.
  We have Members of this Congress who have the gall to walk into this 
august body making $560 a day and telling people making $680 a month 
that they do not deserve a minimum wage increase, and then we say we 
need to get people off of welfare and we need to put people on 
payrolls. And if we really want to put people on payrolls, I mean, does 
the gentleman realize last week we took 600,000 or 1.2 million young 
people off the payrolls? So if you really want to put people on 
payrolls, you do not do it by cutting summer jobs. So I think all this 
is all somewhat inconsistent.
  But if I may, if the gentleman would yield a few more seconds, I 
would like to make note of a scroll I
 received from my district, to change the subject a little bit, because 
students at Queensborough Elementary School received a lot of 
criticism, the teachers as well, by Rush Limbaugh, because these 
students decided to write a scroll and send this scroll to Washington, 
DC, concerned about their school lunch program. I just take strong 
issue with anybody criticizing students for writing their Member of 
Congress.

  Mr. SANDERS. Rush Limbaugh is that low income fellow that has a hard 
time feeding himself, is that the fellow?
  Mr. FIELDS of Louisiana. I do not think he has missed a meal.
  Mr. SANDERS. That makes $25 million a year, I believe, the same 
fellow.
  Mr. FIELDS of Louisiana. If not more. The problem I have with that, 
the kids have a right to be concerned about their school nutrition 
program, because the fact of the matter is if you look at the 
Republican proposal, there is no nutritional standards in the school 
nutrition program. Not only that, 20 percent of their money can be used 
for other purposes.
  So I want to thank the gentleman for yielding, and I want to thank 
these kids and all these teachers for writing these very, very 
distinguished scrolls.
  Mr. SANDERS. I yield to the gentleman from California [Mr. Becerra].
  Mr. BECERRA. I thank the gentleman from Vermont for not only 
yielding, but also for scheduling this special order and giving us all 
an opportunity to discuss further some of the aspects of this whole 
debate we are going through on the contract on America. I am glad I can 
join my colleagues. Ms. Kaptur and Mr. Fields on this particular 
debate, because it is very interesting.
  We are now at a point where we are discussing so-called welfare 
reform, and what we find in the bill before us, H.R. 4 on the floor, it 
is the version, sort of a pseudo-version of what was in the contract on 
America.
  What we find is that the Republicans claim that they are going to 
save about $66 billion through this welfare reform package, yet they 
are not going to cut school lunches, day-care. Somehow they are going 
to save without making cuts they say, but we know in fact they will 
cut.
  But perhaps the most egregious aspect of these cuts is not just that 
they go after kids, not just that some of these cuts they are making 
overall go after elderly, not that they go after the disabled, but the 
use of these cuts. We had yesterday debated on the floor of this House 
a particular amendment that was supposed to be technical. It was a 
change that was made, and I know the cameras can't pick this up for our 
colleagues to see, but what I want to read what that amendment said. 
This is what we had to spot. It said page 393, strike line 4 and all 
that follows through line 7. Page 393, strike line 5, strike 
``technical amendment.''
  What that line did was it changed what the bill said which required 
that monies that would be cut and therefore would be available for 
deficit reduction would no longer be earmarked for deficit reduction, 
but instead could be used for things like financing tax cuts. Which tax 
cuts? Well, we know the capital gains tax cut is being proposed under 
the Republican's contract on America, and they need about $200 billion 
to pay for these tax cuts.
  So all of a sudden we are finding that welfare reform, which is being 
used by the Republicans to save monies by cutting children's programs, 
school lunch, by cutting the disabled programs, by cutting programs for 
the elderly, are going to be used no longer for deficit reduction, as 
much as you may not have liked all the cuts, but now they are available 
to be used for tax cults. As the gentleman from Vermont has indicated, 
most of these tax cuts will 
 [[Page H3725]] go to the wealthiest Americans earning more than 
$200,000.
  Mr. SANDERS. Next week I believe the tax bill will be coming before 
the House. Last week the House Committee on Ways and Means, as I 
understand it, passed a provision, this is hard to believe, especially 
for people, those real deficit hawks concerned about the large deficit, 
that would repeal the minimal corporate tax.
  Now, some people may remember that in the early 1980's, when the 
large corporations in America were writing tax law in this country, 
what we had is the outrage, was the outrage of huge multibillion dollar 
corporations like General Electric, AT&T, du Pont, wealthy, powerful 
corporations, who were paying in the early 1980's zero in taxes. Zero 
in taxes.
  Well, the embarrassment became so deep that finally in 1986, a 
minimal corporate tax was passed
 that said, corporations, even with all your good lawyers you can go 
through all the loopholes you have put into the system and you pay 
nothing in taxes, there has got to be a minimal tax.

  Recently, last week, the House Committee on Ways and Means proposed 
to do away with that minimal tax. But I know that there is another 
aspect of corporate welfare that has interested Ms. Kaptur very, very 
much, and that is the bailout of Mexico. And maybe in terms of the 
discussion that we are having now, in which last week we cut back, the 
Republicans voted to cut back on fuel assistance for 5 million 
Americans, cut back on the WIC program, cut back on senior citizen 
housing, now, tell us perhaps how could we find $20 billion, not just 
the Republican problem by the way, how can we find $20 billion to bail 
out Mexico?
  Ms. KAPTUR. I am glad you asked that question Congressman Sanders, 
because it is just another one of those Washington miracles that 
happens without a vote of Congress. As hard as we tried to get the 
Speaker of this House to bring a bill on the floor to allow us to stop 
disbursements of additional dollars to Mexico, he would not bring up 
that bill, because he was a partner to the decisions that were made by 
the Clinton administration.
  Mr. SANDERS. Let us be fair. This was bipartisan leadership.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Yes, about six Caucasian men made this decision for 250 
million people. And we effectively, the other 432 Members of this body, 
had nothing to say about it, and it is amazing to me how few people are 
even raising their voices. And yet $5 billion is out the door, another 
$15 billion is ready to go, and who knows how much more, because three 
banks in Mexico collapsed a week and a half ago.
  They are having difficulty refinancing their tesobono offerings, and 
yet our Government could find $20 billion basically to give to Mexico 
so she could pay her Wall Street creditors, the speculators who are 
earning 66 percent interest on bonds that they had bought. They should 
have eaten their losses, as they ate their earnings over the last 5 
years. But they have a special call at the Treasury of the people of 
the United States, and yet the people from my district, 25,000 of them 
who got their heating assistance cut, they had no special call in 
Washington. No Washington miracle happened for them. For those millions 
of kids that will not get a summer job, there was no Washington miracle 
for them.
  Mr. SANDERS. If I might interrupt, Mr. Fields from Louisiana, what 
does it look like when kids are going to see cutbacks in nutrition 
programs and $20 billion is spent bailing out Mexico?
  Mr. FIELDS of Louisiana. It is quite hard to go home and explain to 
kids in Louisiana that will not have a summer job this summer if this 
proposal passes the Senate and is signed by the President of the United 
States of America. It is difficult to stand up in a town hall meeting 
and tell the parent of a kid who will not have a summer job that we 
just sent $20 billion to Mexico.
  Then to add insult to injury, while we cut domestic aid, we spend $14 
billion overseas. It is all right if you live outside of America and 
you want a summer job, because we are going to spend $14 billion to do 
it. It is all right if you live outside of America and you want a 
balanced meal, because we are going to spend $2.2 billion to do that.
  The last point I want to make to the gentleman is we spent a lot of 
time on the balanced budget amendment. We should be spending some time 
on a balanced meal amendment, because under this proposal that will 
pass this House tomorrow, there is no standard, no national standard 
whatsoever. Yes, you got groups looking at it, talking about what 
should be done in the future, but there is no national standard. I 
think that is an insult to the children of our country.
  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Becerra, what does it look like to the people in 
California?
  Mr. BECERRA. Let me tell you, I have a chart here that I would like 
to go through a bit with all of my colleagues here, because I think it 
makes a very interesting point. We find that in the contract with 
America, we have those who gain, and those who lose. And although I 
think the writing may be a little bit difficult to read from a 
distance, what we are talking about is in terms of those who gain, $200 
billion, well, if you happen to earn more than $75,000 a year, $94 
billion of the 200 billion you can expect to go to you. That group of 
people. Of course, if you earn over $200,000 a year, you find you get 
the lion's share of that money. Those between $50,000 and 75,000 in 
income get 51 billion. You start to go to those of $40- to 50,000 
income, 24 billion. Income of 30- to 40,000 dollars, you get 22 billion 
of the 200 billion.
                              {time}  2310

  Incomes of 20,000 to 30,000, you are going to get about 13 billion 
out of an entire 200 billion pot. If you earn less than 20,000, you 
will get about 5 billion. So when you look at the average American 
family, incomes probably below 50,000, you see that you get less than a 
third of all the benefits of these tax cuts that are being proposed in 
the Contract on America.
  That is not bad enough. Let us take a look at who pays: 24 billion is 
paid for by poor families with children, mostly through the cuts that 
we are hearing about in the welfare bill that we have, H.R. 4; 2 
billion is being taken from abused and neglected children programs; 19 
billion is being taken from food stamp recipients, 12 billion is being 
taken from kinds who lose school lunches, child care and WIC; 21 
billion taken from legal aliens.
  I want to mention something here. These are individuals who have 
every night to be in this country. Ultimately will become U.S. citizens 
once they achieve 5 years in this country. They are law abiding. They 
pay every single tax that a citizen must pay. They even serve in our 
armed services defending this country in time of war.
  So they are law abiding. They provide every single kind of tax that 
is a citizen does, yet they are bearing the brunt of the cost in the 
so-called reform of welfare under the Republican welfare reform bill. 
We are taking $10 billion from Medicare. We are taking 12 billion from 
Civil Service pensions, people who have worked, a lot of them, in our 
military. And we are taking $100 billion in spending cuts yet to be 
identified. That means, in other words, that those who sponsor the 
Contract on America have not yet told us where they are getting 100 
billion. So clearly those who gain, if you earn over $100,000, you 
gain. Those who lose, well, usually if you are middle income or low 
income, you will pay for those tax cuts that are going to go to top, 
that earn over $100,000 or $200,000.
  Mr. SANDERS. If I could just ask the gentleman a question, within the 
last couple of months there were two very well publicized fundraising 
events here in the Nation's Capital. On one night, I believe it was 
about a month ago, the Republican party raised in one night $11 
million. On another occasion, Senator Gramm, who is a Republican 
candidate for their nomination for president, raised, I believe, over 
$3 million on one night. On another occasion, Speaker Gingrich held a 
fundraiser for his television network at $50,000 a plate.
  Now, I find it interesting that the Contract With America, must have 
been just an oversight, I am sure, just by accident, they forgot to put 
in campaign finance reform. clearly an oversight, clearly has nothing 
to do with what you have just been talking about.
  In other words, we all understand that this system is dominated by 
money and big money. When people contribute $11 million in one night, 
when the wealthiest people in America make those contributions, they 
are not 
 [[Page H3726]] doing it because they are nice guys. It is an 
investment. And the investment that they are making is precisely what 
Mr. Becerra was talking about a moment ago. Tax breaks for the rich.
  Mr. BECERRA. I think we should point out one particular aspect of 
that third fundraising event that you mentioned. That is the event 
where Speaker Newt Gingrich helped raise money for his television 
network that has a political slant to it. That $50,000 a plate dinner 
was tax deductible. So about a third of
 the cost of that $50,000 that is contributed for what will ultimately 
be fairly political activities, is being written off by those wealthy 
individuals. And who pays? Obviously, the rest of us middle- and low-
income taxpayers, because somebody has to make up the cost of that 
subsidy that we are paying the wealthy individuals to take.

  Mr. SANDERS. At the same time as we are talking about defunding 
public radio and public television.
  Ms. Kaptur, the relationship of campaign finance reform to our 
discussion.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Maybe we could work out a deal for our senior citizens 
who just got cut off their heating assistance. Maybe we could give them 
an equal tax cut where they could get a credit just like those 
companies got that contributed $50,000, did you say, a plate? But we 
will turn it into a new form of tax credit and refund their winter 
heating assistance to them in the same why.
  I wonder if Speaker Gingrich would help us amend the tax code in 
order to help all those seniors across this country who some from 
northern climates that are going to have a very difficult time paying 
their bills? It seems to me what is fair is fair. And I do not support 
that form of back door campaign financing, but I would think we might 
use the same measure for people who are truly in need.
  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Fields, do many of your constituents spend $50,000 
for a dinner.
  Mr. FIELDS of Louisiana. Very few. As a matter of fact, I do not know 
any right off the bat, any of my constituents who would spend that kind 
of money. It goes to show you this whole debate is not about helping 
poor people and making them self-sufficient. It is about taking as much 
as possible away from the poor and giving it to the rich.
  It is no surprise that 68 percent of these cuts are coming, laying on 
the backs of poor people and children. And there is certainly no 
surprise, the fact that we got people who live on trust funds who try 
to tell people on welfare how to live. When they talk about how they 
want to make people self-sufficient and then they penalize babies and 
they say, we are not penalizing babies.
  This is not a surprise to me, and I am sure it is no surprise to you 
that an infant cannot wake up in the morning and buy milk. An infant 
just cannot do that. When you take milk away from an infant, you are 
penalizing the baby. You are not penalizing the mother as much as you 
are penalizing that infant.
  Mr. BECERRA. There is something really strange and perverse about a 
society when we can have people fly from across the country, if they 
are wealthy enough to come lobby Members of Congress, go out and have 
lunch. Deduct it because it is a business expense of coming down here, 
deduct that $50 dollar lunch that they may have, deduct it and come 
over here and tell us that we should be cutting school lunch programs 
for kids while they are writing off as a tax deduction a business tax 
deduction, the cost of a lunch they may have at a very expensive 
restaurant. What we are doing is, a lot of us are standing up and 
saying, what is going on here.
  We want to reform welfare. We just voted on a Democratic alternative 
by some Members, more conservative Members of the Democratic Caucus, 
that would have reformed welfare but what it would have said is, let us 
make you work. If you are on welfare, it is a transition to get you to 
work. And let us understand that we have to be realistic. If you have 
got a daughter or a son and you need to go to work, well, you are going 
to probably need some day care.
 So we are going to help you so you can keep that job by providing you 
with some day care, making sure you do not lose your medical benefits 
because, obviously, as soon as you lose those medical benefits and you 
have some problems with the child getting sick, you are going to drop 
your job and you are going to get back on welfare.

  So let us be realistic. Let us reform, but let us make sure in the 
process of reforming what we are saying is, get to work.
  Mr. SANDERS. If I might, I find really one of the more outrageous 
outrages of the Contract With America is when we talk, every single day 
on the floor of this House, people talk about the virtues of education. 
We hear it all of the time. And yet built within the Contract With 
America are major cutbacks which will make it increasingly difficult 
for millions of young Americans to afford to go to college.
  I am sure the situation is the same in Ohio, Louisiana or California. 
Certainly it is in Vermont. I am getting letters every day where people 
say, Congressman Sanders, do not let them cut back on the Pell grants. 
That is what keeps me in college. Do not have them force me to pay 
interest while I am in college on my loans. It means I am going to drop 
out of college. Do not let them cut back the work study program.
  When everybody understands that it is extremely difficult today to 
earn a good living without a college degree, the shortsightedness and 
the selfishness of saying to working-class Americans, sorry, we are 
giving tax breaks to the rich or maybe we are going to put $50 billion 
in star wars, but for young Americans, I got a letter today, 
Congressman Sanders, I am working two jobs, taking a full-time load in 
my college in Vermont. Do not let them cut back. Yet some people think 
star wars, tax breaks for the rich, are a greater priority.
  I do not understand that at all.
  Mr. FIELDS of Louisiana. National Service is a prime example, 
National Service. The Republican party decided to take money away from 
National Service, a program that gives young people an opportunity to 
earn their way through college, not welfare. But a workfare program, a 
program where young people go to work every morning and work with civic 
service organizations and then pay their way through college. Cut it 
out.
  Is that real welfare reform? And is that real, is that what we do for 
our young people in America? I think not. I think that is one of the 
problems in this country. It is all about what we do for those who have 
the most.
  Mr. SANDERS. Ms. Kaptur.
  Ms. KAPTUR. I wanted to add a comment there on student loans. In the 
State of Ohio, we literally, in the last month and a half, have had 
students arrested. I have not seen this in a couple generations. 
Arrested in our capital city of Columbus, concerned about the fact that 
what you said, Congressman Sanders, that the cost of their loans would 
be going up even more than they have already gone up, that they would 
have to be paying interest on their borrowings immediately. And we know 
that even now most of the students that graduate, graduate in huge 
debt. And when they graduate, what kind of a job can they go to?
                              {time}  2320

  A lot of them are going into jobs that are $14,000-a-year jobs, and 
they are shocked even with a college degree at how little they earn. I 
know I have talked to people from Congressman Field's State, women who 
work on those shrimp, in those shrimp operations where they are doing I 
do not know how many hundreds of those things an hour, they all get 
carpal tunnel syndrome by the time they are in their mid 30s, and they 
are making about 3 bucks an hour. Now, those are working people and yet 
they do not earn a living wage, so whether you are a college graduate 
in this country, loaded up with debt and the contract says we are going 
to load you up with more debt and more interest or whether you are 
working in a shrimping operation in Louisiana or in a dry cleaners shop 
in Toledo, HO, you can't earn a living wage even if you work 40 hours a 
week.
  Mr. SANDERS. I would just simply say, and I say this, by the way, as 
an independent, and in my view it is wrong just to blame the 
Republicans and not to hold Democrats in criticism as well, but I think 
one thing that has disturbed me very much as we discuss the problems 
facing this country is 
 [[Page H3727]] that in this recent election in November when the 
Republicans took power in both houses, all of 38 percent of the 
American people came out to vote. Sixty-two percent of the people are 
so turned off by the political system they did not bother to vote. Most 
poor people in America, many working people in America do not vote. So 
what ends up happening is you have 38 percent of the people who vote, 
you have people who contribute huge amounts of money to the political 
system, they are able to finance candidates of their choice, so you 
have one whole group is invisible. If you do not vote and you are 
earning the minimum wage, who do you think is going to care about you? 
If somebody contributes, they buy a table for $10,000 at the Republican 
fundraiser, that 10 people will have far more influence over the 
political process than 20,000 people in Louisiana who are working for 
minimum wage or farmers in Vermont who are trying to get by on $10,000 
a year.
  So I would simply hope that we can revitalize the political process. 
If we increase voter turnout by 20 percent, this institution would be 
radically different. Mr. Becerra.
  Mr. BECERRA. I thank the gentleman for yielding again.
  I think the gentleman from Vermont is hitting on a very important 
point. I think a lot of us take our time at 11:30 at night to be here 
to discuss this because obviously we are not just trying to talk to our 
colleagues but we are also trying to communicate to the American 
people. We have to make sure we let folks understand what is going on. 
This Contract that was a political contract lobbied and campaigned upon 
back in November, what did it mean, and what is happening with that 
because really when you take a look at what is being done, there really 
is an inconsistency with trying to be American and promote America, and 
what is being done in contracts that say things and when you read those 
find details of the contract, you find something different. The 
gentleman from Vermont raised an interesting point. We are talking 
right now over the last week or so about cuts to children's programs, 
school lunches, other nutrition programs, child care for kids. You have 
to say what is next. Then all of a sudden you find on the horizon that 
the next thing is not just on kids, but now it is on our young people 
that are getting ready to go to college with student loans and student 
grants where we are going to cut a lot of the moneys that we provide 
for our young people to afford a college education.
  I have got to say one thing here. I have a 22-month-old daughter. I 
sat down with a financial planner, my wife and I about 3 months ago, 4 
months ago, and we asked that financial planner what will it cost us to 
get our child through college when she grows up. We were told, well, it 
depends. Public school, you can probably count on something approaching 
$150,000. Private school, and I was very fortunate to go to Stanford 
University, they said Stanford University, you can expect to spend 
about $400,000 for your child to get educated. What is next? Student 
loans. My goodness.
  Mr. SANDERS. I thank the gentleman from California [Mr. Becerra], the 
gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Fields], and the gentlewoman from Ohio 
[Ms. Kaptur] very much.


                          ____________________